ROOT CROPS. , 9T 



I gathered therefrom seventeen tons and four hundred pounds, 

 as weighed at tlie town scales. The land is a strong, hard soil. 

 For two years next previous, cabbages have been grown thereon. 

 It lias been manured, as I usually manure my land, not spar- 

 ingly. It was ploughed to the depth of ten inches, and was 

 covered over with a full coating of muscle bed, as taken from 

 the bed of the river, and this was all the fertilizer applied the 

 present season. The plants did not come up well, there being 

 many spaces of a foot, or more, in the rows, wliere no plants 

 were to be seen ; but the latter part of the season they camo 

 forward finely, there being very few plants less than three inches 

 in diameter, and many of them were as large as my arm, which 

 is not wanting in a fair share of muscle, made more eflTective, 

 probably, by the labor applied in the cultivation of the crop — 

 for it is a rule with me never to suffer weeds to occupy the 

 ground where useful plants are needed to grow. I sowed my 

 carrots at the usual time, and weeded them in tlie usual way. 

 I did not think of offering them for premium until I found 

 my crop unusually large — larger than I have ever before grown, 

 and I believe I have grown as large as any of my neighbors ; 

 and I do not know any neighborhood, where the proprietors of 

 land do their own work with their own hands, where the crops 

 have better attention than on the strong and hard land of South 

 Danvers. 



South Danveks, Nov. 14, 1855. 



Statement of Paul T. Winkler/. 



RuTA Bagas. — The land upon which the ruta bagas grew, 

 which I enter for premium, is a black clay loam, with a clay 

 subsoil. About half of the piece was manured and broken up 

 last year, and planted to corn, in drill, for green feed for cows ; 

 the other half was broken up this year, and one-half of that 

 manured at the rate of twenty loads to the acre, ploughed in, 

 and the other half without any manure, but after it was ploughed 

 we hauled on sand, at the rate of about fifty loads to the acre. 

 The crop when the sand was put on was quite as large as on 

 any part of the piece. 



After it was harrowed, one man went along with a hand rako 



and leveled off a narrow space for a drill. I followed, sowing 

 13* 



